Mixtapes

Real Spit: New Orleans native Gudda Gudda has a bunch of superstars in his camp, including Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj and Drake. Dude might be next in line to blow. Gudda, who's been down with Wayne for around a decade, has been lacing family records like "Thinking to Myself" (his verse about Kunta Kinte steals the show!) "Bedrock" and "Every Girl" with his laid-back, spoken-word flow. This week, though, Gudda steps to the front with his own mixtape, Guddaville.

"The theme behind Guddaville, I'm taking people on a walk through my eyes," he explained. "Every time you heard me been a group project. Guddaville is just me expressing how I feel about a lot of different things, taking you in my world."

Gudda — a New Orleans native — has been mentored by Lil Wayne. Weezy liked his look and wrote Gudda his first rap. After that, though, Gudda stepped his game up through the years. He's going to be good money on Young Money. One of Gudda's biggest inspirations has been N.O. hero Soulja Slim. He shouts him and former Hot Boys member Turk out on the mixtape.

"Soulja, any young dude, period, not just a rapper, any young guy from New Orleans, he was like our 'Pac. So, you know, we all look up to him. I had to acknowledge him. We bumped heads in a lot of different places. It was sad to see him go. I'm gonna continue to acknowledge him. As far as Turk, we speak at least twice a week from jail. I always holla at him. Turk will be home soon."

"Welcome to Guddaville." "This is the intro to my mixtape," Gudda said. "On that song, I'm venting a lot. Just letting people know what's going on at the time. What I been going through. Different things with different people. I just let it all out on that track. I had to put that all on paper. This is a good intro into my world."

"Always Love You" (featuring Nicki Minaj and Short Dawg). "Me and Nicki was in the studio one night trying to get something going. We heard the Whitney Houston sample, pulled the beat up, and Whitney was on the sample saying, 'I will always love you.' The obvious choice would have been to speak on a female or dude. We was like, 'Let's speak on our cities and how much we love where we from.' I was like, 'We could get somebody else on it.' I ran into Short Dawg. He was like, 'Let me hear the joint. ... I love it.' He put a verse on it. We did it. New Orleans, H-Town, New York."

"Getting to the Money" (featuring Tity Boy). "Basically, I was in the studio, I heard the beat. Instantly, the hook popped up, the lyrics started coming. The beat, I just had to do it. I laid it down and said, 'It gotta have that ATL flavor.' I said, 'Let me call my homeboy and see if he'll jump on it.' I hit Tity up, he sent it back two days later. The rest is history."